Sparta Science a sports tech company that applies data and technology to the prediction and reduction of injuries signed their first English premier league partner, Stoke City F.C., the world’s second-oldest professional football club.
Sparta Science Partners With Stoke City
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According to a press release, the Sparta software platform can help coaches and trainers not only measure and reduce player injury risk, but also decrease the costs associated with injury treatment. The Sparta Scan collects data on athletes for a series of jumps on a force plate and then compares it to data collected on over 10,000 professional and collegiate athletes over a nine year time period.
“We needed to have an objective and simple system that we could sell to players and coaching staff, and the clarity that Sparta Science’s system gives us keeps us from getting buried in data that doesn’t matter—coaches and players know what they need to pay attention to,” said Andy Davies, lead strength and rehab coach, Stoke City F.C. in the release.
“The speed is also remarkable—we have two harder training days a week and can get all 30 of our guys tested within a half-hour. This helps with consistency, objectively tracking training results and knowing when our injured players are ready to return to the pitch.”
“Since we’ve brought in the Sparta Science system, we have been able to refine our morning training programs, which has helped increase my availability, as I’m sure it has many of the team,” added Joe Allen, midfielder for Stoke City and Wales international player in the release.
Phil Wagner, M.D., CEO and founder of Sparta Science which is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, told OTW that the software platform besides predicting and preventing injury can also help with rehabilitation after injury and improve performance. Team physicians can use the data to make the best decisions for their players.
He added, “In this era of big data, we offer reliable, valid data that has been published in several publications.”
Some of that published research you can find here. For more information about the company, visit here.
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This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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